MLB 2K7 debuts on PS3!
This years MLB 2K7 arrives on next-gen console PS3 for the 1st time. I was looking for this game to be a major improvement over last years but there seems to be some problems fixed and new ones starting to crawl up. Let’s begin with fielding here. Fielding has some how improved a bit from last year’s game. The players move quite nice and not so sluggish like last year. Though, the most annoying feature when fielding has got to be the dive control when the game tells you can dive for the ball for a catch. You think that when this icon appears under your player you can perform an incredible catch but there are times where you absolutely miss the ball and screw up big time allowing the ball to roll right past you out to the outfield. Batting and pitching are still ok in this year’s game. No complaints here except for the new SixAxis swing which is sort of ridiculous. I still find the dumb argument mode to be pointless. When the manager goes out to blow off some steam on the umpire, there’s always a 100% chance that when the game asks for you to press X to keep arguing, your already on the break of getting your manager kicked out of the game. Something I noticed when playing season and setting your difficulty settings, you can go play season, win 3-6 games in a row and strikeout 12-15 batters in one or three of those games even with the lamest pitchers, Woody Williams / Jason Jennings, Wandy Rodriguez, and after winning a streak of games, the game makes you lose the next 4-7 games in a row. Not only that but if your pitching with your ace, and you throw a very low changeup or fastball you know the batter won’t hit or he’ll miss, the CPU manages to hit a huge HR. While losing these game the AI not only beats you 1-0 or 4-2, but they crush the hell out of you like scores of 12-3 or 15-1. I think 2K needs to check and fix their difficulty stats / AI on next years game cause it doesn’t feel real sim at all.
Online is still great as ever though I’m starting to see many users aren’t playing online anymore with MLB 2K. Back in the days there used to be more than 20-45 players online everyday but now the games online is really starting to shrink. The average of players playing online with this game is now down to 5-25 or 5-15 players. Makes me wonder if I should get MLB 2K8 next year. Now makes the negative of online play. Sure there’s still your bums that cheese, glitch, drop glitch, and play stupid their way to victory. What I’m noticing this years online is the ballparks. There’s a list of ballparks online which lag real bad online even though if both players have really good connections / ping. This list consists of Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Citizen’s Bank Park and probably others, which I have forgotten. Now this problem did not occur in last year’s game but this is a factor in this year’s game. As an added bonus, these ball parks also lag even offline too! Even during season or exhibition these parks have some real bad lag when you have bases loaded or runners on base.
Player faces need more detail and upgrades! Some don’t even look like them real selves. 2K must have some problem in creating these ballparks cause some parks still have lots of its main features still missing. Minute Maid Park almost looks like Minute Maid Park in the game but the upper seats don’t even come close in the game. This goes for other ballparks as well.
Well, 2K, you almost go everything right but there’s still lots of work to be done in this game. The ballparks that lag need to be fixed, the difficulty / AI needs tweaking and would it hurt to have some classic ballparks back to unlock like the Astrodome? Here’s looking that next year you get all this corrected cause I don’t want to be buying MLB 08 The Show!